Mr. Speaker, we do not oppose this change. It is how it is being done.
People have to understand that some of these communities are barely given enough funds to cover their operations, such as, providing housing, education, clean water, keeping the facilities up to par, just the funds for a band. We will have to explain to people what this change will mean to them. Processes have to be put into place. We will need to do capacity building in the communities.
Some of the bands and reserves are not big operations. Some of them are very small communities. Even though we do not have bands in my territory of Nunavut, I can relate to some of these communities. When only 300 people live in a community, we have to serve our residents on all levels. If we are asking people to fundamentally change how they operate, they have to be given time to deal with the change. Resources and a process are needed to deal with the complaints, and I just do not see six months as a reasonable time to deal with it.
If we look historically at what has happened with some of the procedures, parliament has gone into elections and bills have died on the order paper. This is beyond the control of the people who are trying to pass the legislation.
The AFN, the Native Women's Association and even the Canadian Bar Association are asking that there be an interpretive clause in the legislation which we do not see. We are very worried that there will be an unjust balance in how these complaints are taken care of if we do not have that kind of interpretive clause.
We are not against people having their human rights defended, but there needs to be ample time to phase it in and also an opportunity for the people who are affected to make sure that there is a good understanding of collective rights versus individual rights.